AROUND NY

Published 1:00 am, Thursday, July 23, 2009

ALBANY — New York's Republican party will support a North Country lawmaker in the special election for the 23rd Congressional District seat long held by Rep. John McHugh.

McHugh was nominated to be President Barack Obama's secretary of the Army but has not yet been confirmed.

The state GOP is supporting Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava of Jefferson County, who represents four counties in the heavily Republican district.

The vast, rural district includes the state's only active Army post and also includes the Adirondack Mountains and Thousand Islands.

State GOP leaders say Scozzafava was picked from a field of nine candidates.

Gov. David Paterson has not scheduled a special election for the seat.

— Associated Press

Jury: West Point didn't curb free speech at game

WHITE PLAINS — A federal jury has decided that West Point officials who ordered anti-war demonstrators out of an Army-Navy basketball game did not violate their First Amendment rights.

The eight protesters had worn T-shirts that spelled out "U.S. out of Iraq" in the stands at a 2004 game. The building manager ordered them to take off the shirts or leave. They refused and were escorted out by military police.

The demonstrators were charged with disorderly conduct, but that case was dropped. The garrison commander, however, banned them from West Point for five years.

The protesters sued the officials on free-speech grounds in federal court in White Plains.

On Wednesday, the second day of deliberations, the jurors sided with West Point.

— Associated Press

Arrest made in homicide of motivational speaker

NEW YORK — A man is in custody in the slaying of a Long Island motivational speaker, and investigators are searching for two other suspects, a woman and another man.

Kenneth Minor, 36, was set to be arraigned Wednesday on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of Jeff Locker. Minor was seen on security cameras both inside Locker's sedan and later using the victim's ATM card, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Locker was found stabbed to death in his parked car in East Harlem on Thursday, hours after calling his wife in North Woodmere to say he had a flat tire and would be late coming home.

— Associated Press

Upstate hospital workers sue for lunch overtime

SYRACUSE — Thousands of employees at three upstate New York hospitals could be owed millions in overtime pay for working through their lunch breaks, according to federal class action lawsuits.

The hourly health care workers have until Sept. 15 to join the suits.

The lawsuits filed in November in U.S. District Court in Syracuse contend St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center and Crouse Hospital in Syracuse and Faxton-St. Luke's Healthcare in Utica have practices and policies that automatically deduct lunch breaks from their pay, even when they work during those breaks taking care of patients.